Wednesday, November 15, 2006
To P.P., who asked Being a fancypants writer and editor and all, are you embarrassed when you misspell stuff on your blog for all the world to see that maybe you are not so all that:
yse.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
A reason I write:
“Regular people need to be known.”
I do really believe that about writing about people: You get to know them and you get to see things, and it’s really valuable. I think it sort of matters that you get to know the way someone else is living. Dave Isay really does believe that [...]
Sunday, November 12, 2006
The excellence of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth. — John Keats
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
Q: Okay, we know you like Mary Robison. Who else would you recommend to read, someone whose work we might not know? - S.
This is another OPA. The question has been sitting with me since last summer sometime, after I mentioned Mary Robison in a post about Pia Z. Ehrhardt, for which I feel bad, [...]
From my email inbox: “Why don’t you respond to your comments any more?” J.P.
Answer: Because I don’t know what to say sometimes. Because often what I think of to say seems totally lame and is not bound to invite further conversation. (Does it follow then, that maybe I am not that great of a conversationalist? [...]
The Ashmead Kernel. When first Charlotte Shelton (photo) announced it, I thought, from where I stood, she said, “Ashley’s Colonel” and had a whole different idea about how the apple got its name. But of course kernel makes more sense than colonel.
You can’t tell from the photo that this apple is a dark yellow [...]
Getting ready to leave La Taza’s — you know, La Taza’s, which I have written about before and which (or where) I am more frequently than I mention in these blog entries because this coffeehouse is after all just footsteps from my home and because it would be boring and unimaginative to mention that I [...]
Thursday, November 2, 2006
It is true that since I moved to Charlottesville two months ago, I’m not at home much. And yes, since I work from my home, it follows that I’m not working on a daily basis. Suddenly, then, I’ve got a whole lot to do. Like today. Whether we’ve managed to establish (and follow) regular work [...]
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
Having come to Paris ostensibly to write a book about Rodin commissioned by a publisher, Rilke was also in search of what, exactly, greatness and strength would mean in an artist, one who was indisputably so, as Rodin was, and alive for the oracular consultation. [my bold]
So writes Rick Barot. Rilke’s Blue Flower, The Virginia [...]